Amen to that, Rollingb. The pan should just kiss the barrel.
Something you might consider is cutting the point off the toe of the butt, just a touch behind the screw on the toe plate. Then straightne out the butt plate and shorten the toe plate to fit right again. It makes the rifle a lot more comfortable to shoot.
While I am giving advice (things I did with my GPR) is to replace the barrel wedges with slotted wedges from Track of the Wolf. You inlet a pin under the escutcheon which goes through the slot, then screw the escutcheon down. This traps the wedge so you can't lose it. You do have to grind the wedge shorter, no biggie.
Once the parts are inlet, before you brown or blue them, mount them in place and then sand the wood down even with the metal surfaces. After that you can polish out any scratches you made in the metal and blue or brown it.
Keep the edges sharp when you sand. Use a sanding block, and don't round them over.
If the gun is in the white, go for the brown. Laurel Mountain nakes a good browner/degreaser, with which you don't need to worry about having the parts squeeky clean. However, bluing is also traditional. I suspect that some guns which are now brown started out blued, and after 200 years of handling, hanging as decorators, poor cleaning etc, now look browned.
Hope this helps. Let us know how you make out.
-WH-
